Nature

Amongst the books we found in our hire cottage on Arran, was one called “Arran for Families”. It was a brilliant little book – fully illustrated with easy to read information about places to visit on the island. On a showery day, we decided to visit two of the destinations we found within its pages – the Giant’s Graves and Glenashdale Falls.

One of the great things about Arran is just going for a drive and pulling in to different places to see what is there. I suppose that can be the same anywhere really. After a morning spent at Kildonnan looking for seals, we decided to drive round the island, pulling in wherever we fancied. It was getting late when we drove into a picnic area at North Sannox. It was a gorgeous spot. After messing around for a while at the spot where North Sannox Burn enters the sea, we decided we head back to the cottage for some tea. Before we left, I checked the information board and noticed that we could start a walk to Fallen Rocks from here.

After we’d visited Machrie Moor Stone Circle, there was still plenty of time left for more adventure, so we drove the short distance down the road to Torr Righ Beag, a coniferous forest by the sea. From here, we could walk down to the beach to explore the King’s Cave, but not before the customary check of the information board. Here, we found a circular walk which, for no particular reason, we chose to do clockwise. We made our way to a forest track on the left hand side of the car park.

You may have noticed from some of my blog posts that, occasionally, I get a little confused with my navigation. From taking a bearing with the direction of travel arrow pointing in the opposite direction and squinting to try and find paths I can see in the real world but not on the map, to just generally doubting my map reading and decisions – I decided it was time to do something about it and booked myself on not one, but two navigation courses.

Earlier this year, we made a last minute decision to visit Sale Water Park for the City of Trees Go Wild event. City of Trees are a movement aiming to restore Greater Manchester’s woodlands and generally make Manchester greener through planting trees, and their Go Wild event was aimed at getting kids outside.